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<blockquote data-quote="Don Durito" data-source="post: 8111134" data-attributes="member: 6687260">As I said earlier, they've had issues in the past where rules elements have created drift in what players expect of the game.&nbsp; One example is Half Elves, which are now considered &quot;iconic&quot; Charisma based characters, but in 2E were more seen as quiet outsiders - their description says they tend to be Rangers or Druids, but they didn't have level limits as Bards, so Half-elf bards became a thing.Two weapon Fighting for Rangers became a thing, and people spent years arguing about that.&nbsp; Dex is so powerful for finesse weapons because 3E made them a thing.&nbsp; Great Weapon Master seems to be a thing because Power Attacking with 2 handed weapons was such a common thing in 3.5.Synergies that rules create lead to reshaping of expectations, but imperfectly and can lead to division and edition wars down the road about what the game should be - which are not good for the game in the long term.WOTC in the last two editions (5E and 4E essentials) doubled down on a lot stereotypes and race class synergies, even when a lot of the player base was asking for the opposite, and other games (such as 13th Age) were going in a different direction.&nbsp; It's hard to believe that this was not a conscious decision - so that they must have thought there was some value at the time in holding the line rules wise.(My personal preference would be to make all non-human races explicitly optional and give the DM a toolkit to make new races and stop shoe-horning the unbelievably tired tropes of Tolkienish races into everything.&nbsp; So personally, I think Elves having bonuses to Strength rather than Dex is just putting lipstick on a pig.)</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Don Durito, post: 8111134, member: 6687260"] As I said earlier, they've had issues in the past where rules elements have created drift in what players expect of the game. One example is Half Elves, which are now considered "iconic" Charisma based characters, but in 2E were more seen as quiet outsiders - their description says they tend to be Rangers or Druids, but they didn't have level limits as Bards, so Half-elf bards became a thing. Two weapon Fighting for Rangers became a thing, and people spent years arguing about that. Dex is so powerful for finesse weapons because 3E made them a thing. Great Weapon Master seems to be a thing because Power Attacking with 2 handed weapons was such a common thing in 3.5. Synergies that rules create lead to reshaping of expectations, but imperfectly and can lead to division and edition wars down the road about what the game should be - which are not good for the game in the long term. WOTC in the last two editions (5E and 4E essentials) doubled down on a lot stereotypes and race class synergies, even when a lot of the player base was asking for the opposite, and other games (such as 13th Age) were going in a different direction. It's hard to believe that this was not a conscious decision - so that they must have thought there was [I]some value[/I] at the time in holding the line rules wise. (My personal preference would be to make all non-human races explicitly optional and give the DM a toolkit to make new races and stop shoe-horning the unbelievably tired tropes of Tolkienish races into everything. So personally, I think Elves having bonuses to Strength rather than Dex is just putting lipstick on a pig.) [/QUOTE]

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